Welcome to Ormond-by-the-Sea which, surprisingly, is next to the sea

My new home is in Ormond-by-the-Sea, Florida. It is separated by the Inland Waterway from Ormond-not-by-the -Sea where most of the rest of my family lives. They just call it Ormond. As I drive A1A up the coast, I look out at the billions upon billions gallons of water in the omnipresent sea or Atlantic Ocean as some call it. It is so vast that I stand by-the-sea and gape.

It is a big change from Cheyenne-by-the-Prairie which is also a vast land that, coincidentally, was once an inland sea where plesiosaurs pursued prey under my patch of dry ground. A better name might be Cheyenne-pretty-close-to-the-mountains which is the Laramie Range and then the Snowy Range and if you travel south the Mummy Range and Rocky Mountain National Park. Beautiful, beautiful places where our family spent a lot of time and those memories will be forever lodged in my heart.

Vedauwoo was our favorite. Son Kevin learned to free-climb there and our daughter Annie loved to hike and camp. We watched UW’s Vertical Dance on a rock face of 1.5-billion-year-old granite. I’m pretty sure Florida will be underwater by then. I recently saw a map that showed Florida twice the size 18,000 years ago due to a 30 percent drop in sea level. Ormond-by-the-sea would have to move east to maintain its name and dignity.

Yesterday Chris and I drove to Flagler Beach. You can see the waves break from A1A. The day before, a stretch of this road was swamped by a monsoon rain and traffic had to be rerouted. Once we reached Flagler, we had to slow down for construction. The Army Corps of Engineers brought their massive equipment here to refurbish the beach and roadway washed away during the last two hurricanes. They are piping in beige sand from a huge barge. The current sand is red which has its origins in coquina rock and is a rougher sand that washes away easily. The beige sand is more stalwart.

After six or seven miles of construction, we get to the Flagler Pier and summer crowds. Surfers have arrived in droves to ride the waves which break better near the pier. My brothers and I surfed here in the 1960s and ‘70s. The crowds were smaller and the locals pretty welcoming unless you took off in front of them on a wave and then they would kick their board at you trying for some decapitation or maybe just a few bruises. We did the same thing at our beach in Daytona. All in fun.

Chris and I were on a mission to get our Florida driver’s licenses and tags and also register to vote. We didn’t want to miss out on the most important vote of our lifetime. We volunteered for election day duty. Some say it’s going to be a free-for-all but ruffians will think twice when they see this gray-haired man in a walker sent to keep the peace or die trying. It’s easy to come unglued at times like this. MAGA people and Christian Nationalists have followed Trump’s lead and issued threats. The other side (my side) tries to keep cool heads and say only positive things online. We often fail.

Chris and I accomplished two of our goals. The tags had to wait due to additional paperwork. We celebrated by taking naps and ordering take-out from Stavro’s, a fine Italian place just up the street and in sight of the sea. I should say by-the-sea.

I take my Wyoming Public Radio habit down south

I start my day listening to Wyoming Public Radio. Weekdays, it’s the old stand-by, Morning Music. I started hundreds of mornings listening to this show which, in earlier times, was the best way to hear new music and old. David Crosby’s birthday might prod the DJ to program CSNY, the Hollies, and his solo recordings. No better way to begin a cold January day than hearing “Wooden Ships” or “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes.” Yes, I was 18 when CSNY released its first album.

I would never be 18 again, a fact I didn’t dwell on then but do now. There’s more music on WPR, from classical to jazz. They both now have separate channels which is wonderful. There’s the Saturday morning show, “Ranch Breakfast” that features country-western tunes and Old West favorites we used to sing around campfires.

There are cowboy traditions in Florida. In Orlando once, Chris and I skipped Disney and Universal to visit the Osceola County History Museum in Kissimmee. It features dioramas and displays about pre-settlement Florida and the cowboy era which still exists in the annual rodeo. There’s some bragging going on, with the boast that Florida used to be the second-biggest cattle-producing state. There are a lot of Used-to-be’s in Florida.

Cattle Country is now Condo Country. Sprawling senior communities such as The Villages have displaced cows and orange groves and acres of wild forest. I spent my formative years in Central Florida. I was a surfer but my fave pastime was canoeing on the Withlacoochee or Juniper Springs or a dozen other fresh water creeks, most fed by natural springs. You experienced wildlife first-hand as you can in Wyoming. That’s a beautiful thing.

I could decry the changes like the old codger that I am. But time is short. I want to be with my family and experience everything I can. “Be Here Now” as Ram Dass famously wrote. A wise man who probably never met a cowboy or a senior cruising the beach on his trike bike. But I have.

Be here now.

We say hello to Florida

 Let's get the preliminaries out of the way. It's hot and humid here. It's more crowded than I remember. The college football season starts today so the barbecues flare and the liquor stores are swarmed. The Governor did another stupid thing yesterday. The sunsets over the river are gorgeous and I hear the same thing about the sunrises. I've seen two Trump signs and two for Harris/Walz. So far, a 2-2 tie.

We almost got creamed by a pickup truck. We waited at a light in front of Sushi Fugu. That is a bit ironic as Fugu the pufferfish can kill you if not prepared by an expert chef (read the darkly humorous story "Sorry, Fugu" by T.C. Boyle). I thought about that and watched the couple on the Harley in front of us. I heard something and looked over just in time to see a pickup roar off the bridge, jump the curb, and come right at me. It was a nice truck and it was coming my way at a high rate of speed. Luckily, the truck wheels hit the median next to us and the driver steered by and raced away. 

I remember Chris screaming and the pickup passing a few inches away from my Nissan. I thought, "I can reach out and touch it." Time slowed and the truck took forever to blow by and continue down River Drive. "We were almost killed," Chris yelled. "You were almost killed." I acknowledged this but kept remembering my hand reached for the automatic window lever and I was ready to touch this truck as it flew by, inches away. It was a magical moment and I never felt terror. 

There is something wrong with me.

Police officer: "Son, you were almost killed by an F-250 driving crazy down the bridge. You escaped death by inches."

Me: "I just wanted to reach out and touch it."

They might have sent me to the county hospital's 1400 ward where I worked as an orderly when I attended the local community college in the 1970s. That's where certified insane people go. I could have been DOA at the Ormond Memorial ER. I was both blessed and lucky I could go on my way, cross the bridge to the other side of the river, and drive home.

Chris: "We were almost killed."

Me: "I just wanted to reach out and touch it."

Chris: "You're crazy, dear. I mean that in the nicest way."

Welcome to Florida.

We say farewell to Wyoming

After 33 years in Wyoming, my wife Chris and I are moving out of state. We chose to return to Florida, the place where we did most of our growing up, the place that dug its claws into us as teens and young adults and never really let go. My six surviving brothers and sisters live in Central Florida. Chris had one sister who died four years ago, and a brother-in-law who died earlier this year. Chris and I were married in Ormond Beach north of Daytona, famous for its races and shitfaced spring-break college kids. I keep track of what's happening in the area by subscribing to the Facebook Chat, "I Grew Up in Daytona Beach." I occasionally run across an old classmate at Father Lopez Catholic High School or one of the guys (guys mostly) I surfed with at Hartford Approach. Deaths, too, good people like my brothers Pat and Dan. They've both been gone over a decade and I just wish I had more time with them. We talked on the phone, visited when we could, but the miles separated us over the years and I wish I had done some things differently but did not. Chris regrets the passage of her sister from lung cancer. Her only sibling. I share mine with her.

I wish I could say that I am moving to a more sane place politically but, as everyone knows, Florida Man is a real creature and there are thousands like him, many in the state capital Tallahassee. When I retired eight years ago, colleagues asked me if I was returning to Florida and I said, heck no, don't you spend time on the Internet? If I wanted to move someplace half-sane, I would cross the border into Colorado, my birthplace and the place where I spent 13 years of my adult life. I love Colorado. So do my liberal friends. Most liberals I knew in Cheyenne greeted retirement with a one-way trip to Denver or Loveland or Greeley or Fort Collins or Paonia or Grand Junction. Are there unhinged people in the Centennial State? Of course. I met many while working in Denver. A serial killer lived two blocks away and the neighborhood rapist turned out to be the TV repair man. I'm not making light of this as I was out of town often for work. I left to drag my family to grad school at CSU which I regretted a few dozen times but realize now it was just another step along the path. I remember hikes at Greyrock and Horsetooth. Beautiful sunsets can be had almost every evening. I am sure there were gorgeous sunrises but I was never awake to see them.

What did I learn in Wyoming? Listen more than speak. Appreciate the wild landscapes and even wilder weather. Art is more than the paintings hanging in a museum. It's that too but also a fine poem or a stirring country song. Is taxidermy an art? I was asked this once by a board member from Ten Sleep. I think I said, "It can be." Saddlemaking and knifemaking are artforms in practiced hands. Every house has a piano or fiddle or guitar. Gives them something to do and you can wind up with a family band as did the Cowsills and the Osmonds.

I am out of here. Gone but not forgetful.

The night is rescued by the south wind

Wind from the South

The setting sun turns the sky red the smoke

From fires in Oregon and California. The red

Haze settles over the mountain valleys and the

West wind waits to move it our way. When the

wind arrives after dark it surprises us all

it flows from the south the monsoonal flow

and its saturated air designed to douse the

fires sweep the sky clean. Pull back the curtains

open the windows wide. I smell the rain or think

I do but there are no clouds no lightning no

rumbles of thunder. But the wind from the

south fresh and cool unexpected treat from

the deserts of Saguaros and scorpions and

sweeps of sand. I turn my chair to the open

window tune out the ball game the cell phone

the gurgling kitchen noises. Just me and the

Wind here on the high prairie. The wind.

Long, hot summer is the perfect time to explore an active Hawaiian volcano in "Eruption"

I just finished “Eruption” co-written posthumously by Michael Crichton and prehumously by best-selling author James Patterson. It’s a wild ride to the imagined 2025 catastrophic eruption of Hawaii’ s Mauna Loa. I learned so much about volcanoes and about Hawaii. The book includes a map of the big island but I kept a big Hawaii map handy so I could follow the action. I looked at many videos of volcano eruptions around the globe that are mentioned by volcanologists in the book.

I have read some good books on volcanoes. Simon Winchester’s “Krakatoa: The Day the World Ended, Aug. 27, 1883.”  This is a nonfiction thriller about the world’s worst eruption witnessed by humans. Curl your toes it will. “Rising Fire: Volcanoes and our Inner Lives” by Colorado’s John Calderazzo explores the physical and spiritual aspects of volcanoes. He also wrote a companion children’s book. There are dozens of children’s books on the subject. Also, Harry Turtledove writes alternative histories and this one explores a future Yellowstone eruption: “Supervolcano: All Fall Down.” The map on the cover makes it clear that Cheyenne, Wyoming is toast. Thanks, Harry. We have a forest of nukes on one side and a supervolcano on the other. Yellowstone was in the news this week about a dramatic steam eruption not far from Old Faithful. Nobody killed or hurt but it left one hell of a mess.

While the volcano is the center of the action in “Eruption,” a slew of interesting characters move the story along. Dr. John MacGregor  (“just call me Mac”) is the crotchety focus of the story. Mac kind of loses his starring role when army generals show up to manage the toxic weapon cache stored in Mauna Loa’s ice cave. Sorry, this is a bit of a spoiler but a key element of the story.  It’s worth reading the book just to find out what kind of doomsday weapon the U.S. could devise if they had Dr. Strangelove as the designer.

The book is organized into short scenes – there are 109-plus chapters. They are short, punchy chapters. This rhythm kept me reading even though the narrative sometimes got bogged down into arcane details of vulcanology. That’s OK by me but some readers may be tempted to skip over the middle chapters to get to the eruptions.

Almost as interesting as the novel’s proceedings in its back matter. Michael Crichton was just 66 when he died from cancer in 2008. He was an author, screenwriter, and filmmaker who, according to his very long bio was “the only writer in history to have a #1 book, #1 film, and #1 television series at the same time, and he did it twice.” I might be a bit skeptical had I not participated in the reading, moviegoing, and TV watching of Crichton’s work. I read his first novel, “The Andromeda Strain” in 1971, ate up “Jurassic Park,” and now it is 2024 and I have read his last one, or at least the last one to carry his name. He left behind a mountain of research on volcanoes and the people who study them. Also, neat details of Hawaii’s volcano-carved islands. It was up to family members and James Patterson to piece together his notes and plan for the book. “Eruption” the movie is in the works and the web is buzzing with the casting of Keanu Reeves in the lead role. The acting and special effects should be spectacular.

The lone hollyhock in my garden

Lone Hollyhock

My version:

Only one stalk this year. Hollyhock rises among the bachelor buttons and coreopsis. Elbows its way up, beefy stalk, heart-shaped leaves as big as, well, a human heart, if the human heart was shaped like a valentine heart. A cluster of buds promise alcea rosea flowers in magenta, fuchsia, pink, and one I’d like to see, Queeny Purple, which promises a royal presence, a long reign.

Alcea rosea marched from Japan and China all the way to the Middle East and into my 21^st-century garden. Twelfth century crusaders made a salve from the pretty flowers. They rubbed it on their horses’ rear legs (the hocks) to relieve the soreness of many rough miles. Those few holy warriors who made it back to Merry Ol’ told tales of a beautiful flower that grew in the Holy Land that eased their horses’ hocks. It became Holy Hock changed by a monk to Holyoke and later given its present name. Hollyhock was born.

Hollyhocks are in the disjointed Mallow family that includes okra, cotton, hibiscus, and marsh mallow which found its way into s’mores, a staple of every summer campfire. Think of a mallow camp surrounded by hollyhocks, okra in your gumbo, shirts of cotton, hibiscus for your true love, and the dessert ritual of gooey s'mores.

My hollyhock is alone out there in the garden, blooming the magenta of nature, the magenta of the inkjet canisters on his laser printer. A storm is coming. West winds whip the hollyhock. It ticks like a metronome, the rhythm of a horse’s hooves on the hard rocks of Judea, the Cajun beat that rocks the fais-do-dos, that marshmallow smear my wife licks from her upper lip.

I asked AI to make mine more descriptive. This is what happened:

In my garden this year, there stands a remarkable sight: a solitary hollyhock stalk amid the colorful company of bachelor buttons and coreopsis. Its robust, heart-shaped leaves are as large as a human heart, and a cluster of promising buds foretell an imminent spectacle of alcea rosea flowers in vibrant hues of magenta, fuchsia, pink, and the intriguing Queeny Purple. This resilient plant, alcea rosea, has a rich history, journeying from Japan and China all the way to the Middle East before finding its place in 21st-century gardens. Legend has it that 12th-century crusaders used a salve made from these exquisite flowers to soothe their horses' sore legs during their arduous travels. Tales of a magnificent flower that grew in the Holy Land and its beneficial properties to the knights' trusty steeds eventually led to the transformation of Holy Hock into Hollyhock, a name that has endured through the centuries. It's fascinating to think of hollyhocks as part of the disjointed Mallow family, which also includes okra, cotton, hibiscus, and marshmallow – the very ingredient that adds sweetness to the timeless tradition of s'mores enjoyed around summer campfires. As the storm approaches, my lone hollyhock bravely stands, presenting blooms that mirror the vivid magenta of nature and the modern inkjet canisters. Exposed to the whipping winds of the approaching storm, it maintains a steady rhythm reminiscent of a horse's hooves tapping on the hard rocks of Judea or the infectious beat of a Cajun fais-do-do, elevating the marshmallowy treat enjoyed by my wife, licked from her upper lip.

The things that tickled me:

The knights’ trusty steeds

Colorful company of bachelor buttons and coreopsis

marshmallow – the very ingredient that adds sweetness to the timeless tradition of s'mores enjoyed around summer campfires.

A 21-century editor wouldn’t like the overuse of adjectives and adverbs. 

The AI version reads more like the style of a traditional 17^th-century poem. Without the rhyming couplets.